Kiran Rao’s second movie titled ‘Ship of Theseus’ directed by Anand Gandhi and slated for a July 19 release, has chosen to walk a different path for its promotions. As reported by Exchange 4 Media, Disney UTV Studios – which is involved in the official marketing and distribution of the film – has rolled out some interesting digital campaigns for the film. In what comes across as a first-of-its-kind campaign, audiences are being given the choice to decide whether the new movie should release in their city as well. ‘Ship of Theseus’ has a planned release in five cities – Mumbai, NCR, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Pune.

So if you are in any other city and want the movie released there, just log on to Facebook and visit the UTV Motion Pictures page. The voting campaign ‘Vote for your city’ has been hosted on a dedicated Facebook app. You do not need to ‘like’ the page to be able to vote.

An official trailer of the movie adorns the app, below which a drop down list helps you select your city. There are not many cities in the list but you can select ‘Others’ in that case and enter your city. Submit along with your name and email id, so you could be informed of the results.

The app also displays the voting results which has ‘others’ at the top with 80%, followed by Hyderabad and Chennai with 63% and 54% respectively. Cities in the middle have received votes in the range of 10-30% while the bottom eight cities are all within 10% votes. The film will be released only when a city receives 100% votes!

A simple app that does the job. Though it could have added some of the Facebook features provided for spreading the word in your networks. A basic ‘Share’ and ‘Invite friends’ option would have been good to include.

Coming from Kiran Rao’s stable of movies, Anand Gandhi’s much acclaimed ‘Ship of Theseus’ would require a mature audience. Indeed ‘Vote for your city’ is an innovative Facebook polling initiative for an offbeat film. Gauging the demand for the film prior to releasing it ensures that your cinema halls don’t run empty. Besides, the polls would also indicate whether Facebook initiatives of this kind can work in future.